


A Kind of Magic

by Braincoins



Series: Connection-verse [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, background klance, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9278771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Braincoins/pseuds/Braincoins
Summary: The Paladins of Voltron are on a quest: what is it that Allura's saying that keeps breaking Shiro's brain like that?





	

**Author's Note:**

> You don't have to read "Draw Near" or the rest of the Connection-verse first, but it couldn't hurt. 
> 
> This is just me being silly (or maybe the Paladins being silly anyway).  
> As usual, hasn't had the benefit of much editing.  
> =======================

            It wasn’t hard to tell. They came to breakfast together the day after Shiro’s month in the cryo-replenisher, smiling and finding excuses to touch each other. Coran cleared his throat a couple of times when they were getting too silly and blushy. Keith might not get pop culture references or understand the “memes” Lance was always on about, but he could read Shiro like a book. He was happy, ridiculously so, and more relaxed than Keith had seen him since before Kerberos. Lance and Hunk swapped a look and both started grinning. Keith leaned over to explain it in a whisper to Pidge, who rolled her eyes and went back to tapping through the information she was looking at on her tablet.

            Everyone got used to it quickly. Shiro and Allura were more or less normal when the other wasn’t around, and if they were discussing battle plans or the like, they were good at staying on track. They both just rolled with the teasing they were getting, and Keith was glad to see his mentor so happy. It made his moments with Lance that much nicer because he knew he didn’t have to worry over Shiro anymore.

            So, the first time it happened, Keith didn’t really think much of it. They were all on the bridge discussing flight formations, using the main screen to display suggestions and work out the strengths and weaknesses of each. Well, all of them except the two Alteans, at least until Allura walked in. “Oh, did I miss a meeting?”

            “No, we’re just going over some things,” Shiro told her.

            She smiled. “I was hoping to get Hunk to help me with the auxiliary crystal array, but it can wait.”

            “We’re almost done,” Shiro said.

            “I’ll come help as soon as this is over,” Hunk promised with his usual smile.

            Allura just smiled and came over to kiss Shiro’s cheek. This wasn’t anything unusual, and Keith didn’t so much as blink at it until Shiro sucked in a breath suddenly. Keith looked over at him and found him blushing as Allura sauntered away. _What the…?_

            Shiro cleared his throat. “Okay, so if we shift Yellow to mid – ,” he continued, clearly trying to pretend he wasn’t an interesting shade of red. Keith looked at Lance who shrugged in reply. He gave up trying to figure it out and went back to paying attention to the formations.

           

 

            A couple of days later, the inevitable happened: another food fight broke out. Lance had started this one by flinging a spoonful of goo at Keith. Keith had to retaliate, of course, but he missed and hit Pidge, and the fight was on. Shiro tried to break up the breakfast melee, but a goo splat nearly took out his eye and after that he was officially a combatant. Allura and Coran ran in to intervene, and Shiro just lobbed a handful of goo at the princess’s face. So now it was everyone but the mice, who were running around gorging themselves on splattered food.

            When the carnage was over, everyone was sitting in chairs or just lying on the floor, laughing and worn out. “Okay,” Shiro said, catching his breath, “and now we’ve got to clean it up.” He sat up from his spot on the floor, and Allura came over to offer him a hand up. “Thanks,” he said as he accepted.

            She pulled him up easily, of course, and this time Keith was able to notice her whisper something into Shiro’s ear as he came in close to her. Whatever it was, it was short and had the same immediate effect as before: Shiro was red-faced and unable to form words for a second, while Allura smirked and let go of his hand, shaking goo off of her clothing and asking Coran to kindly get the mop, please.

            Shiro’s blushing only intensified when his eyes met Keith’s. He arched one eyebrow, but Shiro just cleared his throat and started gathering up dishes to take to the kitchen. As soon as their leader was out of the room, Lance appeared beside Keith. “You saw that, right?”

            Keith nodded.

            “I mean he was _definitely_ blushing.”

            “Keep your voice down.” He jerked his head over towards Allura, who was in discussion with Coran about mess-mopping. “And yeah, he was.”

            “What’d she say?”

            “I don’t know!” he protested. “It wasn’t long enough to be a sentence, I don’t think.”

            “This requires investigation,” Pidge piped up out of nowhere.

            “GYAH!” Lance nearly fell over backwards. “PIDGE!”

            “Do _not_ start another fight!” Allura called over.

            “We won’t,” all three of them said sweetly, all smiles. She frowned suspiciously at them, but went back to talking to Coran.

            “What sort of investigation?” Keith asked Pidge quietly, once it was safe to do so.

            “Well, it was short: one or two words, right?” He and Lance both nodded. “So we just have to keep our eyes peeled, see if we can see her mouth when she says it. That’ll help us narrow it down. I’ll get Hunk in on this, too; he’s surprisingly good at being sneaky.

            “In the meantime, Keith, you know Shiro best. While we’re cleaning up, think about what sort of things would be likely to make him blush that hard that quickly. Anything to help narrow down the list. There’s over 170,000 words in the English language, and that’s only current use; it’s possible Alteans – especially ones that are over ten thousand years old – might use some archaic terms. We’ll never get it if we just start at ‘A’ and keep guessing.”

            “Got it.”

            “Okay, now act normal,” she advised. So Keith shoved Lance.

            “HEY! What’s the big idea?!” Lance shoved him back.

            Pidge just closed her eyes and shook her head, walking off mumbling something about, “I guess that _is_ normal.”

            Allura came over to break it up, and cleanup resumed. Keith noticed Pidge was cleaning over near Hunk and, at one point, the big man turned and gave Keith a thumbs up. _Hunk’s on board. Excellent._

 

            After that, it became the paladins’ favorite game. They referred to it as “Allura’s Magic Spell,” because even the magiphobic Pidge had to admit it was the best descriptor: say a single word and voila! Red-faced Black Paladin.

            “It has to be something sexual,” Keith said, going over their potential word lists again. They’d catalogued five separate incidents so far and decided it had to be a single word, but they’d gotten no further in their Quest for the Spell.

            “You’re sure it’s not romantic?” Lance pursued.

            “If it was, he’d be smiling that dorky smile,” Keith insisted. “The fact that he’s kind of speechless for a second afterwards means it something his brain isn’t prepared to handle, so it’s probably some sort of kinky sex word that he just wasn’t expecting her to say in public.”

            “I can’t believe I’m about to ask this,” Pidge groaned, “but what sort of kinks do you think Shiro would have that (A) she would have already found out about and (B) she’s willing to exploit like that?”

            “She’s just doing it to mess with him,” Hunk said. “So I don’t think (B) applies, or, at least, it doesn’t narrow our search parameters any. She’d do it with just about anything that she knew would trip his brain circuits.”

            “Okay, but that still leaves (A),” Lance said. They all looked at Keith.

            He shrugged. “How am I supposed to know?”

            “You two are like brothers!” Lance declared.

            “Yeah, and do you tell _your_ siblings about your sexual kinks?” Keith pointed out. “I know his type, but…”

            “What’s his type?” Hunk asked.

            Keith grinned. “The type of person who can kick his ass. And I don’t just mean ‘beat him in a fight’. Someone who can knock him flat without throwing a punch.”

            They looked around at each other and started nodding. “Yep, that’s her,” they agreed in unison.

            “So, is the Spell something to do with that, then?” Pidge wondered.

            “I dunno.”

            “I’m going to check the training deck logs,” she said, pulling her laptop over to her. “Maybe something’s come up when the two of them were sparring together.”

            “I’ll bet it has,” Lance commented with a grin. “Maybe more than once.”

            Keith facepalmed. “You have _such_ a dirty mind sometimes, I swear.”

            “You don’t always complain about that.”

            Keith felt himself blushing while Hunk pointed out, “And that’s actually kind of useful for what we’re doing here.”

            “Hey,” Shiro said, walking in. “What’s going on in here?” Keith sent the word lists on his tablet away and turned it off, trying to act nonchalant.

            “Just chillin’,” Lance said with an easy-going smile. “Team-bonding, that sort of thing.”

            Keith pounced. “So, how are things with Allura?” He ignored the glares Hunk, Pidge, and Lance were giving him.

            Shiro just laughed and came over to sit next to him. “Fine.” He wasn’t blushing or upset, just easy-going and laidback. “How are things with you and Lance?”

            “I’m right here!” Lance protested.

            Shiro chuckled. “Okay, then. Lance, how are things with you and Keith?”

            “That’s better. And they’re cool, thank you for asking.”

            Keith rolled his eyes, but then Hunk broke in with a question for Shiro about something he’d said earlier in the day, and the conversation was off and rolling. It was something that still amazed Keith sometimes. He wasn’t used to having people he was this comfortable with. They could sit around and talk about nothing for what seemed like hours, and he wasn’t sure why he liked it, but he did.

            Pidge caught his eye at one point in the conversation and shook her head. _Nothing on the training deck logs to help us figure it out._ He just let Lance and Hunk keep the chatter up while he thought.

            “There you all are!” Allura said brightly as she walked in. “I was looking for you.”

            “Yeah? Why?” Lance asked, narrowing his eyes.

            “Cleaning duty time!” she sing-songed merrily. There was a chorus of groans.

            “I KNEW IT!” Lance howled. “Betrayal! Treachery!”

            “Settle down,” Hunk told him. “Maybe you got laundry this time.”

            “I don’t like laundry.”

            “Laundry is the easiest,” Pidge told him.

            “But I don’t like touching everyone’s dirty clothes,” he whined.

            “Shiro has laundry,” Allura told him. “You have dishes.”

            Lance groaned again and Keith spoke up before anyone else could. “He’s going to whine no matter what he gets. Don’t waste your breath.”

            “Yeah, it’s true,” Lance admitted.

            She doled out the remaining cleaning duty assignments with a chipper smile. Shiro stood and stretched. “Might as well get to it, then.”

            “That’s the spirit!” Allura agreed. She swooped over to Shiro’s side to kiss his cheek, and the paladins paused, waiting to see if she would cast her spell again.

            And she _did_ , leaning in to whisper something in his ear. But this time, there was an additional effect: besides going red, Shiro cleared his throat then picked Allura up and carried her straight out the door. Their eyes all went wide at the spectacle.

            “She overdid it that time,” Hunk broke into the silence.

            “She was red, too,” Pidge pointed out. “She _really_ overdid it.”

            “Okay, now I want to know more than ever what she’s saying,” Lance said. “And see if it works on Keith.”

            Keith rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to prompt me. I _could_ just cart you off.”

            Lance batted his eyelashes at him and smiled hopefully.

            “After you finish the dishes. GO.”

            Lance groaned and Pidge and Hunk snickered as they headed out. Keith grabbed Lance’s hand long enough to pull him back in for a quick kiss and then headed for his own cleaning duty. The mystery of Allura’s Magic Spell would be providing them entertainment for a while, it looked like.  


End file.
